Fidel Castro: His last days in Havana?

By Rodrigo Acuña

The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

3 February 2009

Recent reports in the media have indicated that the former Cuban
leader Dr Fidel Castro Ruz is perhaps at the end of his life. On January
1, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Cuban revolution, Castro,
in an unusually short statement, wrote one sentence to mark the
occasion. Over a week ago, the President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez
claimed that his Cuban ally would not make a return to public life.

On January 21 though, reports on Castro's health changed as it was confirmed Argentina's President Cristina Fernández held a one hour meeting with the Cuban. Two days later, Castro published a new article - a regular practice since he underwent surgery in July 2006 for gastrointestinal problems. Castro wrote:

"I
have shortened my "Reflections", just as I resolved to do this year, in
order not to interfere or get in the way of the comrades of the Party
and state as they make constant decisions about objective difficulties
stemming from the world economic crisis. I am fine, but I insist, none
of them should feel constrained by any of my Reflections, the
seriousness of my condition or my death."

Once dead, there will most likely be two common interpretations of Fidel Castro. The first version is now well known.

Having
overthrown the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the young
Castro was quickly able to manoeuvre himself into the top position as
victory gave him unprecedented political capital. Claiming he would soon
hold elections, Castro nevertheless, while pushed by Washington to
trade with Moscow, keenly established a one party state.

Whether
it was developing a dairy industry or Cuba's agriculture, many critics
have long claimed Castro always thought he knew best - above the experts
and, at times, at the expense of the economy. Anecdotes of his micro
management are notorious.

A brilliant orator, Castro often
undermined this by delivering speeches that would last hours. In 1986,
at the third Communist Party Congress in Havana, the Cuban leader spoke
for seven hours and ten minutes. Before Pope John Paul II visited Cuba
in 1998, Castro on television delivered another marathon performance as
one of the members on the panel next to him fell asleep live on air -
something that occasionally happened to bureaucrats throughout the
1990s.

While he allowed himself vast publicity, Castro's
dissenters where not granted the same rights. Interviewed by Barbara
Walters in 1977, his response to a question on Cuba's media policies was self explanatory:

Walters:
"Let me be specific. Your newspapers, radio, television, motion
pictures are under state control. No dissent or opposition is allowed in
the public media."

Castro: "Barbara, we do not have your same
conceptions. Our concept of freedom of the press is not yours. And I say
this very honestly. I have nothing to hide. If you ask us if a paper
could appear here against socialism, I could honestly say, no it cannot
appear. It would not be allowed by the party, the government or the
people. In that sense, we do not have the freedom of the press that you
posses in the U.S."

Add to Castro's record his government's treatment of homosexuals, and the Cuban certainly has a few questions to answer.

Anyone
who has travelled to Cuba though, and speaks a respectable level of
Spanish, will be able to confirm that Fidel Castro has his supporters.
While in countries like Australia during the 1960s and 70s, many of the
baby boomer generation flirted with leftist politics, in the Caribbean
island, millions of people believed they were constructing a new
society.

So abandoned was the countryside prior to 1959, in less
than three years the Castro brothers, Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, were able to build strong bonds with the peasants and
overthrow Batista. Decades later, the new generations of the revolution
travelled to countries like Angola and Nicaragua as teachers, doctors
and soldiers attempting to model their parents' values.

When
Washington moved against Havana by imposing an economic blockade,
approved military actions and terrorist acts by former Batista
collaborators - which cost countless lives and did not end until the late 1990s - and went to ridiculous levels to try and assassinate Castro, the former lawyer's status grew to gargantuan proportions.

If
Castro was harsh at times, his supporters have always argued it is
because the island has been under virtual war-time conditions. In 1991,
the U.S. State Department published a series of internal documents
covering U.S. policy towards Cuba from 1958-1960. One document states:

"The
majority of Cubans support Castro ... the only foreseeable means of
alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection
based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship ... every possible means
should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba ... a
line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible,
makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to
decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and
overthrow of government."

Today
in Latin America, for leftists presidents like Hugo Chávez and
Bolivia's Evo Morales, Castro is a mentor; for millions of their
supporters in the slums, he is a legend - a point not difficult to
understand when one considers that thousands of Cuban doctors and
teachers are working in those countries. Shortly before his surgery in
2006, Castro's visit to Argentina was broadcast live on television as
massive crowds turned out to hear his words. If Cuba and Castro are
presented to the world by the Western press as isolated relics of the
past, in countries throughout Latin America this is hardly the case.

"Last
October, the United Nations General Assembly voted for the 17th time in
as many years to condemn the U.S. embargo by a vote of 185 to 3. In
December, 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations in the Rio Group
granted Cuba full membership and called for an end to the U.S. embargo. A
policy adopted half a century ago to isolate Cuba today isolates only
the U.S."

From their perspective, due to divisions in the
Cuban-American lobby, the new U.S. President, Barack Obama, has an
unprecedented opportunity to normalise relations with Havana. While an
end to the embargo is an unlikely scenario, if this were to happen, many
Cubans would be given new opportunities to do with their political
system as they see fit instead of having to concentrate on meeting their
daily needs.

At present, dissidents like Yoani Sánchez do exist,
and publish with difficulties, however, there is nothing remotely
resembling the types of mass movements that challenged the Soviet
systems in Eastern Europe.

As for Fidel Castro, only time will
tell if he lives for a few more days, weeks, months or even years. Once
dead, celebrations will break out in Miami while countless people
throughout Cuba will genuinely mourn him. What future generations decide
to do with the revolution will be another matter.